How to debug Apache mod rewrite

Question

I have two main problems with mod rewrite   1  There is no meaningful error reported when I have an invalid rule    2  To reliably test each modification  I have to erase chrome s cache  This isn t rocket science  but I have to hit Ctrl Shift Delete then click OK  then close the window  and reload   I d like to see if any of the gurus are willing to share their secrets to efficiently managing mod rewrite code

User · Answer

The LogRewrite directive as mentioned by Ben is not available anymore in Apache 2.4. You need to use the LogLevel directive instead. E.g.

LogLevel alert rewrite:trace6

See http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/mod_rewrite.html#logging

User · Answer

There s the htaccess tester   It shows which conditions were tested for a certain URL  which ones met the criteria and which rules got executed   It seems to have some glitches  though

User · Answer

One trick is to turn on the rewrite log  To turn it on  try this line in your apache main config or current virtual host file  not in  htaccess   LogLevel alert rewrite trace6  Before Apache httpd 2 4 mod rewrite  such a per-module logging configuration did not exist yet  instead you could use the following logging settings  RewriteEngine On RewriteLog  quot  var log apache2 rewrite log quot  RewriteLogLevel 3

User · Answer

For basic URL resolution  use a command line fetcher like wget or curl to do the testing  rather than a manual browser  Then you don t have to clear any cache  just up arrow and Enter in a shell to re-run your test fetches

User · Answer

Based on Ben s answer you you could do the following when running apache on Linux  Debian in my case    First create the file rewrite-log load   etc apache2 mods-availabe rewrite-log load   RewriteLog   var log apache2 rewrite log  RewriteLogLevel 3   Then enter       a2enmod rewrite-log   followed by       service apache2 restart   And when you finished with debuging your rewrite rules       a2dismod rewrite-log  amp  amp  service apache2 restart

[apache] How to debug Apache mod_rewrite

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